Indiscriminate Dust
by nb41
Summary: A post-STID ficlet set during the five-year mission, wherein it becomes apparent that not everything the Enterprise discovers will still be extant.


Everyone except Uhura was surprised when Kirk found a decrepit structure at the bottom of a canyon. These sorts of mysteries were attracted to him, or so she kept telling them, and this was just Exhibit Number 235.

Spock's initial analysis of the small planet, taken from orbit, was interesting enough all on its own. The readings indicated the continents were once a wide mix of biomes, from tundra to swamps to tall mountains, and the southernmost had been inhabited all along its coastline and well into the previously-forested interior as recently as two hundred years earlier.

What they landed on was a desolate wasteland of volcanic fields, sand dunes, and plains of ash. A handful of resilient plant- and algae-like life forms clung to existence here and there, unyielding in the face of the cataclysm that had wiped out everything else. They hid in crevasses and clung to the undersides of scattered boulders and grew in long, bioluminescent trails at the bottoms of canyons.

Kirk had followed one of those paths (of course he had) into a narrow slot canyon entrance. Now, a handful of hours later, they looked up, and up, and up, at his find.

It was easily seven hundred feet tall and built straight into the rock walls. Its makers had combined other materials with the natural gray and red stone of the canyon proper: something akin to wood that had burned or rotted and mostly fallen out; a metal that was blackened and brittle; and a smoky-colored, glass-like material that was pitted and scorched anywhere that it hadn't simply shattered. The rock stood firm, unwavering in the face of whatever had destroyed all else.

The glowing algae was only just enough to navigate by, leaving shadows that obscured most of the gray, dusty canyon floor. The science team moved about, setting up floodlights to reveal more of the structure and their surroundings.

Spock squinted up at the knife edge of light far overhead. "The canyon's narrow opening must have protected it from the event."

Kirk knelt down and took up a finger-sized fragment of the glass. "Stellar flare?"

"Possibly."

Uhura's attention was on the building proper. Its architecture was bold and rounded, and at more sheltered angles she could see suggestions that the walls and curving support columns had been extensively decorated with murals. Each level had rounded windows looking out over the canyon, and in some places an entire floor was nothing more than a large, open space. The ground floor had the remains of a mosaic, though there wasn't enough left to make out anything of it. Even the tile colors had been rendered muted grays and browns.

Kirk stood and moved closer to the building, pocketing the piece of glass he'd found. Spock was giving instructions to the science team, so Uhura followed him.

He stopped at the curved flight of steps that lead inside. The columns bracing the doorway were riddled with cracks, and after peering at them, he shook his head. "Probably have to send in a probe." He sounded disappointed.

Uhura kept her relief out of her voice. "The new cameras are the highest resolution we've ever used. We'll get good pictures."

"It's not the same, though."

Spock joined them. "Indeed, it is not, because it is a good deal safer for us." Uhura gave him a small smile while Kirk rolled his eyes.

"Come on, Spock, this might be all that's left of," Kirk gestured at the dark interior beyond the crumbling entrance, "whoever they were. It'd be nice to get a closer look."

"And we will, Captain. With three of our probes. The new models are very agile and the engineering team has done extensive work to fit all of the sensor equipment onto them."

Two years ago Kirk would have gone in without bothering to tell anyone; now, Uhura watched him put his hands on his hips and sigh. "Okay. But if it's structurally sound I at least want a look at the ground floor."

"Of course, Captain."

Kirk nodded at Spock and pulled the piece of glass out of his pocket. He turned it over in his hand, tossed it up, caught it, and walked back towards the glowing trail. "Uhura. Let's see if there's any more of these."

Uhura gave Spock a tired look-there was really no winning here-and his expression softened in sympathy. She turned to follow Kirk. "Are we planning on going inside anything we find, Captain?"

"Of course not," he assured her, and leaned over to take a light and tri-corder from one of the science team kits. He moved a short way down the pale blue and yellow trail before pausing to wait for her.

_Of course not_, Uhura thought. With a resigned sigh she took one of each for herself and joined him.

* * *

They walked for forty-five minutes before finding the next structure. It was very similar to the first, though not identical-longer than it was tall, and with less of the glass material and more of the rotted wood-and it hadn't suffered as much damage. After both of their scans came back showing acceptable structural integrity and they'd reported the location to Spock, Kirk said what Uhura had imagined he would.

"Let's have a look inside."

She'd been preparing herself to say no for the last half-hour, complete with a list of ways to short-circuit numerous excuses. Now, looking at the rounded windows and mysterious mosaic floor and elaborate murals, all bathed in the blue and yellow light of the algae's bioluminescent glow, the fading light of the solar system's white giant, and their own meager lights, she simply nodded in agreement.

He was, for all his eagerness to explore the building, careful about it. They paused on the threshold and he inspected the walls and support columns again, and shined his light inside to illuminate the foyer for a good minute before proceeding.

The mosaic floor continued from the entrance, and here inside its colors had been protected from the event. A winding, whorled path of red, orange, and black lead from the empty doorway to a set of circular, descending terrace steps that terminated in what appeared to be some form of fire pit. Three doorways placed at cardinal directions lead into other rooms whose interiors were not exposed to their lights at this angle, and thus remained in shadow.

The terrace steps were clean, and the pit itself contained the crumbled remains of some ancient fire. Uhura stared at it, thinking, while out of the corner of her eye she saw Kirk scanning the mural of one wall with his tri-corder. After he'd finished, she looked to him, and he nodded at the room to their right.

She raised her light to keep their immediate vicinity well-lit, and he in turn held his forward as they approached. The frame was more of the glassy material they'd seen used in the facades, though it had been arranged into patterns and designs using a variety of shapes. Kirk paused just before they went in to run a hand over one in particular.

"Does that look like their sun to you?"

Uhura considered the rest of the frame. "It does-and this might be their two moons. This could be a comet." She touched each one as she identified it. After another moment of quiet contemplation, Kirk shined his light out over the rest of the room, and whatever he saw made him freeze in place.

"What is it?" Uhura had to step around him to get a look, and she found herself likewise rooted to the spot. The interior was laid out similar to the entrance room, yet while that room was empty, this one was not: spread along the terrace steps was an enormous collection of skeletons.

Or she assumed that's what they were, based on their shapes and arrangements and similarities to the various skeletal formations she'd seen from the Academy until now. They suggested a bipedal being, shorter than most humans and with a broad, wide frame, long-snouted face, and a segmented tail. The bones were also interesting in and of themselves: they shown smoky black and had a glassy sheen, much like the material around the door frame.

"Is this what I think it is?" Kirk asked. His hushed voice didn't betray his reaction the way his body language did, and she thought if she didn't know him so well she'd think him only curious and wary.

"I think so." She began to look around them, raising her light up towards the ceiling. The murals traced the rounded edges of the room, their colors smothered by long-collected dust. It was hard for her to follow the design, though after retracing it numerous times she decided some of the shapes could be plants, others animals, and still others landscape features. She turned her light to the floor, where the mosaic's twisting shapes spiraled along the steps and terminated in the fire pit. After a few more seconds she finally saw it.

"They're arranged around the pit." And they were; the skeletons that had survived the event and all which followed it, at any rate. She couldn't, due to the nature of their collapse, be sure of which way they'd been facing, but the overall spacing was consistent.

"Did they come here to die?"

It was a distinct possibility. "Maybe," she said, keeping her voice low. She walked to one of the walls and began taking readings. She hoped to find some evidence of their writing once she had time to process her scans; it was too hard to make out much in these low light conditions.

When Uhura glanced at Kirk again it was to find him still staring at the bones. Just as she was going to ask him if he was okay, he said, "We should go," and turned for the door. His eyes met hers briefly, and she could see that he wasn't interested in having a discussion about it.

She finished up her scan and made to follow him with only a nod, and wondered if he was seeing another arrangement of dead alien beings, their skeletons embedded in black glass and hidden on a small icy planet they would never see again.

* * *

Spock was unsurprised when Uhura reported that she and the captain had found another building similar to the first. Although he thought her theory of the captain's personal 'improbable and shocking event vortex' was superstitious at best, he could not deny that the captain was a definite outlier in terms of the sheer number of such things which happened in his presence.

Their subsequent report, which came some twenty minutes later, revealed they had gone inside, and his relief upon hearing that the captain had run structural tests first gave way to intrigue at their find, which was the same thing the probes had revealed at the first site: gatherings of skeletons in the various circular, terraced rooms throughout the structure. He dispatched a science team to the second site, and once they were in place the captain and Uhura returned. The captain made it clear he wanted there to be no large, physical samples taken. Pictures, trace, and scans only, and absolutely no moving or touching the bones. He even put the small piece of glass he'd picked up back exactly where he'd found it.

While he was doing that, Uhura shot Spock a look that implied a great deal about Jim's behavior at the other site. Spock gave her the faintest nod, and they both went back to their duties.

They found two more of the buildings in that canyon. One was in a larger opening and had been reduced to large pieces of rubble piled in front of a gaping, weathered catacomb; the other was in similar shape to their first find. They spent the better part of two days combing the rest of the planet from orbit and in small teams, but the skeletons within the hidden structures were the only remains of previous, sentient life that they found. They came across a handful of other ruined, individual buildings and several large footprints which had probably contained villages, towns, and cities; these fragments of what had come before were all that remained.

The captain called an end to the survey, and they laid in a course for their next objective: a molecular cloud with a protostar that might, if Chekov's calculations were correct, be close enough to igniting into a star that they could catch it in action.

Spock opted to deliver his report in the privacy of Jim's quarters, because Jim's entire demeanor had become subdued and withdrawn since leaving the planet. Jim accepted the tablet and skimmed over the contents, making an effort to read it even though he was clearly distracted. Once he was done, he nodded and set it down on his desk. "Chekov's still crunching the numbers on the system's star. Once that's done maybe we can figure out what happened."

Spock nodded. "It would allow us to compile a more complete picture of the planet's history."

"Yeah." Jim toyed with the tablet. "Listen, if this kind of thing is-I mean, if you'd rather not lead the teams when we find something like this, let me know. I'm sure Agarwal wouldn't mind." He looked up at Spock, clearly assessing him.

It took Spock a moment to comprehend Jim's meaning. He hadn't yet examined his reactions to their discovery as it related to his own unfortunate circumstance as the survivor of a lost planet, though it was no surprise the captain had already thought about it. He seemed particularly sensitive to his crew's emotional well-being.

Spock considered the situation for a second, though no more; anything in depth needed to wait for his meditation. "I am not experiencing difficulty, though if I begin to, I will request that Lieutenant Commander Agarwal lead the teams of such surveys."

"Okay." Jim looked away, out across the room. His hands went still, and he said, "All they did, everything they knew, what they were, it's just...gone."

"An unfortunate if unavoidable consequence of evolving in the presence of a star." Jim made a low sound of agreement, though his expression remained troubled. His reaction wasn't a logical thing, but very little about Jim Kirk was logical, and Spock found he wanted to reassure him somehow. "We will record everything of their history that we may, so they will not, at least, be entirely lost to time. Perhaps, in the future, a new species will arise and venture into space, at which time they may learn of their predecessors' history."

Jim nodded, his eyes flicking to the tablet again. "Right." He shook his head and, shoving the device aside, looked up at Spock. "You have anywhere to be?"

"My shift has just ended and I will not be taking my meal for another seventy-five minutes."

"Observation deck? Chess?" Without waiting for a reply, Jim stood from his desk and made for the door to his quarters.

"It is unlikely we will be able to finish a match in that amount of time."

"What makes you think I can't beat you in an hour and fifteen minutes?"

"Setting aside the question of who would succeed, your quickest victory thus far required eighty-four minutes. I find it unlikely you will be able to improve on that time by over ten percent in a single sitting."

"O ye of little faith." Jim opened the door and gestured for Spock to lead the way. His smile held only a ghost of its usual deviousness, but it was a start. "After you, Mr. Spock."

Spock decided to set a modest pace to the Observation Deck, so he would have time to formulate a handful of opening strategies.


End file.
